The Burn Rate Diet: The New Mind-Body Treatment for Permanent Weight Control

This book brings an interesting approach to eating and weight control based on two points. The first is that everybody has a built-in metabolic rate (or burn rate) that determines how a given level of calorie intake affects their weight. The second point is that dfferent foods "burn" at different rates, that is their intake will provide a sense of satisfaction and fullness for only so long (carbohydrates burn quickly and fats burn slowly). The trick to losing weight (assuming that is what most of us want to do) is to mix foods in our diet and spread our eating over the day so that we feel full and acknowledge what level of calories we need to take in (given our internal burn rate along with our level of exercise)to attain a certain weight level.This diet (really a way of eating) is a very individualized approach that begins with a burn rate test diet in which you a eat specified for 2 weeks and see how that affects your weight. This lets you see if you have a high or low burn rate. From here, you eat pretty much without a lot of strict rules but take account of how the foods you eat are burned by your body and affect your desire to eat. The right mix of foods and the timing of your eating (given the burn rate of the foods) will help you feel full while allowing you to lose weight. As you lose weight, you should then be able to match your eating to your burn rate (which changes with your weight) to get a balance between the calories you take in through eating and those you expend through your basic metabolism of sustaining your body and the calories you spend on your activities, including exercise.To me, the book seemed to present a credible theory of why people can eat very differently and still have the same weight (or eat the same and have different weights). The book has an good discussion of other diets (such as Atkins and the Zone diets) that links them to the framework of this book. My understanding is that this method of eating is fairly close to the zone diet, i.e., you eat foods over the course of the day with sense of how they affect your blood sugar and feeling of fullness.

The best part of this book is its confident support for the idea that being overweight is not a sign that you are mentally and psychologically deficient, as so many people would have overweight people believe. Being overweight usually means that you have a slow metabolism, something you were born with.This book is one of two valuable new books on creating a more individualized approach to eating for better health and weight control. The other book is "Live Right for Your Type." I suggest that you read both of these books and apply their lessons together. If you are a woman, I suggest you also read "Outsmarting Female Fatigue" as a good complement to these two books. One of Dr. Van Schoyck's best qualities is that he listens carefully to his patients when they describe their weight issues. While almost everyone has a stereotype of fat people as binge eaters with no self-control, he has found that "fewer than 20 percent of my patients actually overeat." The culprit instead is a slow metabolism, the rate at which the body burns calories. His book offers you a chance to find out the extent to which your weight level is maintained by overeating, by not enough exercise, and by a slow metabolism. For most overweight people, the last will be the primary reason. The good news is that with the proper diet, you can actually increase your metabolism to its full potential (which still may not be that of the skinny person next to you) so that you can have a more enjoyable, healthy life. That may also mean that your ideal weight is not what the insurance companies and physicians use. It may be higher than that. But you will probably be healthier at that weight than at a lower one that is all but impossible for you to maintain. So this approach should help you avoid yo-yo weight loss and gain.Getting started is the tough part. You have to follow a test diet that will tell you what your metabolism is for two weeks. Since I just got the book, I have not yet done that. The diet is not too difficult. It is not designed to cause you to lose weight, and you can substitute a lot. The diet is what a "normal" person could eat and maintain weight. So, for some people, it will be an increase in eating. The book then tells you how to take the results (how much you gain or lose) and construct an on-going menu-planning system that fits your metabolism. You can also use the authors' web site (for free) to do this, which is what I would recommend. That's easier.The book has an excellent discussion of other diets and what is right and wrong with them that you will find valuable. It also is very strong on the idea of customizing how you eat to fit yourself. There is a wonderful discussion of how the body burns newly-ingested food, and stored food already in the body that helped me to understand how to adapt how I eat. Some people (I am one of them) can live off of burning stored fat for more hours than others. I always find that I feel best when I only